Yellow vests during a demonstration in Paris in early December.

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BUFKENS Cedric / SIPA

A kick in the face and a baton in the head: a 29-year-old policeman was sentenced Thursday to eight months suspended prison sentence for violence on two "yellow vests" on February 23, 2019 in Paris.

Videos of the events, which took place at Place du Trocadéro during Act 15 of the movement, were broadcast on social networks and then reported by three Internet users, leading to the opening of an investigation by the General Inspectorate of national police (IGPN).

That day, at the end of the demonstration at around 5.40 p.m., members of the security and intervention company (CSI) 75 arrested two demonstrators.

The first was taken to the ground when an official kicked him in the face.

A few seconds later, this same policeman had struck a blow of "flexible stick of defense" in the face of the second, while he was also surrounded by police officers.

"I really want to apologize"

The two brothers in their fifties had been identified as the perpetrators of violence against the police earlier, around 2 p.m., during a “stampede” on the Carrousel bridge.

Facts that the two men dispute.

In this section, they had been sentenced by immediate appearance to 8 months suspended prison sentence.

An appeal trial is scheduled for March 2021.

"I see that the colleagues do not manage to grab their hands right away, I think back to what happened on the bridge, I am afraid that he will flee again", tried to explain Thursday the policeman, speaking of a "reflex" and affirming to have wanted to strike "the upper body" and not the head.

"I really want to apologize."

"It's not the image I have of the police, I feel really ashamed," he added later.

"We let ourselves be arrested"

On the subject of the baton, he assured to have been "threatened" with a "ball", remarks refuted by the second brother.

He had "no gesture of threat or intimidation", he assured, denouncing "gratuitous violence".

"We had no resistance, we let ourselves be stopped," his brother also assured.

The two men were prescribed 5 and 7 days of total incapacity for work (ITT).

Our dossier on violence

This violence is "manifestly disproportionate" and "illegitimate", ruled the prosecutor in her indictment, stressing that they "erode public confidence in the institution".

The magistrate however asked to "take into account the general context, particularly degraded" of the demonstration.

She required an eight-month suspended sentence, without a ban on practice, and was fully followed by the court.

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